How much would the Colosseum fetch if it went for sale?

Accountants from a financial consulting company decided to pull out their calculators and find out

We often say that historical heritage is priceless since it is our irreplaceable gift from the past. It turns out that it may have a price though. The Italian branch of financial consulting powerhouse Deloitte LLP decided to demonstrate just that by calculating what Rome’s Colosseum would fetch if it were put on the market tomorrow. And the answer is – approximately 77 billion euros.

How did they come up with that number? The price factors in the €1.4 billion that the site, among the most popular tourist destinations in the world, contributes to Italy’s gross domestic product yearly, but also the intangible value Italians and others in the world place on it. 

Price vs Value

The Colosseum, which is officially known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, is Italy’s most visited tourist site, drawing some 7 million tourists in 2019, as per the report. Also, to most Italians, it represents the country’s most important attraction.

“The value of an iconic, historical and cultural site such as the Colosseum, to which different dimensions of value can be attributed is objectively complex to determine,” said Marco Vulpiani, head of the valuation, modelling, and economic advisory arm of Deloitte Central Mediterranean, in a statement.

He explained that it “can be analyzed through a quantification of the different configurations of value, ranging from the economic contribution, the indirect use value, and the social asset value, where the latter mainly represents its existence value for the society.”

The indirect use value mentioned by Vulpiani refers to the worth of the pleasure generated by seeing or otherwise being close to the Colosseum, an idea evidenced by the steep price of real estate near the site. Deloitte estimates that figure to be around €400 million.

The remaining 75 billion euros of the price tag ascribed to the Colosseum comes from the site’s social asset value, or the worth placed on the location’s mere existence by society at large. For data on this point, the company administered an online survey.

The survey asked Italian citizens how much they would be willing to pay for the preservation of the Colosseum even if they would not directly benefit from it. Residents of Rome said they would pledge 90 euros per person, while other Italians were willing to dish out 57 euros each.